25th August 2005: Ertegun, Ramone and Rhino release new duets by Ray Charles

Genius And Friends sleeve

19th September sees the release of another posthumous work from Ray Charles. With business legend Ahmet Ertegun and producer Phil Ramone (also responsible for George's Songs From The Last Century) the album "Genius and Friends" came into being which Rhino Records plans to release to coincide with the R&B genius' 75th birthday on 23rd September. Six years before Charles recorded "Genius Loves Company" soon before his death for Concord he had begun work on a similar project for Warner Music. As co-founder of Atlantic Ertegun signed Charles in 1957 and accompanied his career for nearly half a century. He promised the artist on his deathbed to bring the unfinished album to an end. Together with Phil Ramone who also produced the Concord record Ertegun supervised the work on "Genius and Friends" during the last weeks. Partners for Ray Charles are this time Angie Stone, Gladys Knight, Mary J. Blige, Diana Ross, George Michael, Chris Isaak, Willie Nelson, Alicia Keys, Ruben Studdard and the Harlem Gospel singers.

George talked about this recording (Blame It On The Sun by Stevie Wonder) years ago and now it finally sees a release. Great!

5th July 2005: "Make it up before you go go"

George & Elton in '96

According to the Daily Mirror, George Michael and Elton John put their troubles behind them over dinner prepared by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey at George’s North London home.A pal of George’s said: “They’re both delighted that the feud’s over.George invited Elton to have dinner secretly at his house a couple of weeks ago and it was quite an occasion. Gordon did all the cooking and George and Elton spent much of the time creased up laughing as they reminded each other of hilarious stories from the past.” The feud between the two singers began nine months ago when Elton said George smoked too much blow, there was a “deep-rooted unhappiness in his life” and branded his album Patience “disappointing”. George replied in magazine Heat saying: “Elton John knows very little about George Michael and that’s a fact. Most of what Elton knows about my life is limited to the gossip he hears on the gay grapevine.” The former Wham! star added that Elton depended on his old hits to make money, while he said of himself that his “passion and drive is still about the future.” When Elton tried to end the rift last Christmas, George apparently gave him the cold shoulder and ignored all his phone calls. But now things are certainly looking up, as Elton has agreed to George's request to use the pair's 1991 No 1 hit Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me for an album of duets he plans to release later this year.

After the great reception he got from his performance at Live 8 on Saturday (July 2), George seems to be hoping to perform some live dates next year "and that’s a reflection of how confident he’s feeling right now”, a music source said.“Things are looking great for George." He has also got Beatles legend Sir Paul McCartney – who he sang Drive My Car with at Live 8 – to duet with him.

2nd July 2005: Live 8

George at Live 8

George Michael made a late appearance on Live 8 on Saturday when he performed harmonies on Baby You Can Drive My Car, with Paul McCartney. Shortly before George was also interviewed by Jo Whiley:

Jo Whiley: A very special Guest... George Michael
George Michael: Hello
Jo Whiley: Hello, what are you doing here?
George Michael: Erm, Well, I'm actually gonna be singing funnily enough.
Jo Whiley: Right. No one expected this and this kinda leaked out in rehearsals yesterday but and then...
George Michael: Well the thing is, to be honest with you, I did actually want to do, erm, a song of my own. I was gonna do Praying For Time just with a piano.
Jo Whiley: Which would have been great...
George Michael: Thankyou. It would have been nice cos the the lyric would have worked but I have a head cold in case you can't hear my TUUUUUUUNES....
Jo Whiley: ...snottiness....
George Michael: ...impersonation. So I'm a little, little bit heady. So, er, so no that's one of the reasons we didn't announce cos I was afraid I was gonna have to pull out if we announced.
Jo Whiley: So what you doing?
George Michael: I'm gonna be popping on to sing Baby You Can Drive My Car with Mr. McCartney.
Jo Whiley: Oh, ok.
George Michael: Which is a great honour obviously. Fantastic honour.
Jo Whiley: Yeah. And you were at Live Aid then, a few years ago?
George Michael: Yes I was, I was at Live Aid the original, looking like Rolf Harris for some reason. I had a really long beard that day for some reason.
Jo Whiley: You're perfectly trimmed now.
George Michael: I'm back to the old designer stubble now.
Jo Whiley: What were your memories of last ime then? The overriding memory?
George Michael: Erm, just amazing feeling really, something very similar to today, you know, just an amazing feeling and a real kind of admiration for the people who put it together, you know.
Jo Whiley: Ok, and, impression of today?
George Michael: Oh, I think fantastic and obviously because they've had all the international concerts, alot more people and alot more countries feel more involved, which is obviously great, and I think that the fact there's been 20 years passed and Bob is alot more sussed politically. I think this is just unbelievably well timed, incredibly effective as we already can see and that the stupidity of people questioning whether this should have happened or should be happening is phenomenal to me, you know. I think it's a great, great day.
Jo Whiley: The audience seems to be warming up and really enjoying it, I mean, Robbie went down so well.
George Michael: Well, he always does, he’s a great showman isn’t he? You know...
Jo Whiley: Yeah, but you can just feel kind of like it’s build, build in the audience and Peter Kay, as well, I can’t believe it, they were singing along to Amarillo.
George Michael: I know, earlier in the day, you couldn’t hear the audience and now they’ve got some mics on the audience so you can hear the vibe, it’s great.
Jo Whiley: And what’s been going on with you personally? What are you doing at the moment?
George Michael: I’ve been writing and recording at home.
Jo Whiley: Are we gonna see you live at all?
George Michael: Well.
Jo Whiley: It’s been ages!
George Michael: Well, you’re just being naughty cos I’ve told you something off camera, you’re being naughty.
Jo Whiley: But you could easily deflect and say ‘no, I’m not going to’.
George Michael: I’m hoping to, I’m hoping to tour next year.
Jo Whiley: Ok. You can slap my wrist.
George slaps Jo Whiley's wrist
George Michael: Bad girl.
Jo Whiley: OW!
George Michael: That hurt?
Jo Whiley: Yeah!
George Michael: I’m glad, I’m glad. I can give you a bit more of that later if you like?
Jo Whiley: I don’t want anymore.
George Michael: It gets much more exciting.
Jo Whiley: Excuse me. Jake from the Scissor Sisters is out there and he’s far more interested in that.
George Michael: Oh, really?! Has he got George Michael fetish or just a fetish in general?
Jo Whiley: Just a fetish in general I think. Have you been backstage? Have you kind of seen anybody and chatted with people yet?
George Michael: I’ve tried not to really. I’ve tried not to. Not really. I got to say hello to Snoop Dogg. I got to, I was being barged out of the way by his bodyguards but I got to say hello to him which was cool.
Jo Whiley: The size of his bodyguards!
George Michael: Yeah, they were huge, huge.
Jo Whiley: And are you a fan of him?
George Michael: Oh yeah. I love that latest album, it was wicked, wicked.
Jo Whiley: And Madonna? What did you make of her?
George Michael: I thought she did great. I’ve never heard her singing better, you know. And I think she really put her time into rehearsals which you could tell. She was fantastic and definitely one of the high points of the day.
Jo Whiley: And are you nervous? Cos this is ahead of you going on stage?
George Michael: I’m more nervous about this (interview) than I am about that.
Jo Whiley: I’m not going to ask you anymore horrible questions, don’t worry. No more gossip or anything like that. But you don’t get nervous walking out there? Cos there’s how many people?
George Michael: Funnily enough, that feels natural to me, singing in a small group of people I just can’t do. You’ll never hear me sing at a dinner table or anything, but this feels kinda natural. I’ve done it many, many times. So, and also, the pressure’s off me cos I’m not singing on my own. I’m just doing a few harmonies with my stuffed nose.
Jo Whiley: I’m sure you’ll sound absolutely fine. Paul McCartney? Are you friends with him? Is he someone you would work with?
George Michael: Yeah absolutely. We’re doing some recording later this week actually. He has very, very kindly agreed to sing Heal The Pain. We’re gonna do another version of one of my old songs called Heal The Pain – which I wrote as a tribute to him and so I’m incredibly honoured that he’s gonna sing it for me. So yeah, we’re friends. We’ve been speaking for a while.
Jo Whiley: Ok. George thank you. Pleasure to talk to you. It always is.
George Michael: Thank you very much darling, you look great.
Jo Whiley: Yeah ok .... I’m hurting quite a lot (shakes hand).
George Michael: Ha Ha Ha

06th June 2005: Writing for Advocate magazine

George

Is it time the English were more afraid of God?

By George Michael

I can tell you to the day the last time I stepped into a church for something other than a wedding or a funeral. That’s not because I have a remarkable memory, it’s just that it was Christmas Eve, and because I so rarely park my arse on a pew. Some friends had joined my partner, Kenny, and me for the holiday, and having watched some dreadful Xmas telly and downed a few bottles of vino, someone suggested that we go to church for midnight mass. And rather than laughing and asking that person to pass the spliff, I found myself standing by the door in my winter coat as my guests searched drunkenly for their shoes, making jokes about whether they would let us in once they saw the state we were all in.

Of course, this moment of festive cheer (I would be lying if I called it more than that) was only made possible by our proximity to the local Protestant church. It was practically in the back garden. I am lucky enough to own a beautiful 16th-century house on the River Thames, and it’s adjacent to a magnificent Saxon church. We all stood at the kitchen door and listened as the sound of Christianity floated toward the river. It was a hymn none of us recognized—but then why would we?

As my trashed mates and I shuffled noisily into the pew closest to the church door, I looked at the sea of gray heads ahead of me and suddenly felt a little guilty. There were five of us, and none of us ever went to church ordinarily. We were there to add a little romance to our drunken Christmas break, but (despite the weakness of heart in their singing) these men and women were at midnight mass because they believed. Grandmothers and fathers, widows and widowers—the only remaining evidence of a gentler, kinder, terribly English generation. They had used this little village church to get through wars. To pray for those they had lost. To celebrate marriages and births, to ask for guidance, or to beg for God’s forgiveness. To get through 70 or 80 years of life.

I remember feeling glad that no one noticed us. We were sitting at the back of the classroom giggling uncontrollably because one of us had just farted.

Much as I am amused by the thought of five tipsy queens rejoicing in their rejection by laughing at the back of a church during Christmas Eve mass, it wasn’t like that at all. The fact is, Kenny and I were the only shirt-lifters on show that night. My (straight) friends and I showed so little respect in church for one simple reason: We grew up in England. And in England, for every man or woman who goes to church on a Sunday, there are 99 who don’t. Less than 1% of the English are God-fearing people. In fact, on the day of rest, they are all at Ikea.

I bet you think I’m joking, don’t you? I’m really not. The reason I’m telling you all of this is that I know that you are an American. And unless you are reading this article in a friend’s house or a waiting room somewhere, you are almost certainly bent as a nine-bob note, as we English like to say. Which in turn means that you are a homosexual living in a country where more than 60% of the country is taught that you and your kind are going to end up at the hottest circuit party in town. A country that’s moving slowly but surely to the right for all to see. And now, at the very moment that American culture is at its most influential, its most powerful, some of your neighbors have begun to search for answers in the past, and more specifically, in the Good Book.

And no amount of Will or Grace is going to make up for the sight of George W. Bush receiving a standing ovation in Congress as he steps into his time machine to protect the country from fags and dykes like us.

So I have a question to ask, one gay person to another. I know you can’t answer it fully, but who else am I supposed to ask?

As a gay Englishman, should I be more afraid of God?

I’ve never had a problem with God, you see. (The God that Americans are presented with day after day would, I think, have a few problems with me, but we’ll come back to that.) In the England of my childhood, God could be described only as a fading presence, really. Two hundred children would hum vaguely decipherable hymns around me in the main hall each morning, and every once in a while I’d have to stop picking my nose to pretend I was looking for a number in my hymn book, but school had already become a secular environment for all intents and purposes.

It was the ’70s, and by then the historical victims of the British Empire had been tricked into becoming the postwar labor force in England. The Sikh and Hindu children I sat next to in class didn’t have a lot to say about Jesus, and being English and feeling terribly guilty about that whole empire business, we didn’t want to start waving Bibles around and reminding them what fascists we had once been.

I for one think that was a pretty good call. If guilt is the bedrock of the multicultural society England has steadily become, then long live guilt. My father is one of those seduced by England in the ’50s, and London remains the most convincing example of a melting pot in the world. And if you think the United States is getting there—well, I’m sorry, but you need to dust off that passport once in a while.

If all this guilt was beneficial to the cause of racial integration, its knock-on effect was beneficial to us. One of the by-products of a more secular society is, of course, a lack of brimstone and fire when it comes to homosexuality. The two go hand in hand. In fact, there really ought to be a campaign to make Henry VIII the patron saint of English queerdom. Without his arrogance the English would still be Catholic, and we would probably have our own Mel Gibsons and Dubyas to deal with. The lack of interest with which The Passion of the Christ was greeted in England made me proud of my country (for the first time in a while), and if that sounds excessive, bear in mind I’d been in Texas when it was released stateside. Between that and the hysteria over gay marriage at the time, it was an unsettling few weeks to be in America.

Even though it didn’t take a genius to work out that Bush’s timing was purely political (a sorely needed distraction to the hell on earth that Iraq had become), the fact was that it worked. People all over America lost interest in young men and women losing their lives in the name of oil, their heads swinging in the direction of the TV as they caught the words “marriage,” “gay,” and—lest we forget—“sanctity.”

Jesus wept. And who could blame him.

When I look at Kenny sometimes I wonder how much more it took to be the gay son of a Texan. Our separate struggles with family and sexuality were not that different, but my journey was not accompanied by the distant sound of church bells. I have the feeling that for him, they were never far away. I would go as far as to say that people who attend church regularly are regarded with something close to suspicion by most of my generation in England. As a result the politics of religion won’t play a part in the way we vote any time soon. Will it?

In a sick twist, immigration, the very thing that watered down the Church of England and protected English gay men from the ferocity of religious persecution, has become the new enemy to watch out for. As fundamentalism sweeps across America in the form of Bush and his new fan club, gays and lesbians on this side of the pond find themselves in the dreadful position of sharing our soapbox with racists. We’re not afraid of our soft old village vicar. But we are beginning to worry about Allah. Emboldened by their own persecution, Muslim clerics here are beginning to spout some very scary stuff indeed in public, the kind of rhetoric that bishops and archbishops have had to stifle for the past 40 years.

Devout Christians and hard-line Muslims have found common political ground, and it’s called Us.

Is it really possible that immigration, the saving grace of English queerdom, will eventually lead the charge against us?

It is June 2005, and Tony Blair has just won his third term as Britain’s prime minister, despite the public’s complete lack of trust in his politics (and his friends). “Faith schools” are booming, and immigration played a large and unnerving part in the preelection campaigning that barked at us from the TV all day, every day, in the weeks before the May vote. The lowest common denominator rules. No one cares.

The English are palpably losing their identity in a sea of reality shows and American business models, and somewhere in the distance I could swear I hear a bell ring. Or should that be toll?

So maybe those of us giggling at the back should shut up for a bit. The joke may be on us soon enough.

29th November 2003: Signing the deal

After the deal: George with, from left, Andy Stephens and Rob Stringer

The release of George Michael's new album Patience which contains ballads and uptempo tracks of his classic style will be backed by personal promotional activities from the artist which might as well include live dates.

Most of the album has been written and produced by Michael but he has also worked again with two close collaborators, David Austin and Jon Douglas, who have in the past worked with George on several tracks. The new deal with Sony will see his work also be released in the USA, where it is tried to re-establish George as a contemporary artist.

26th November 2003: John & Elvis video

A video for John And Elvis (Are Dead) -one of the tracks from Patience- is being shot as you read this.

17th November 2003: George Michael returns to Sony with new worldwide deal

George Michael has resigned to Sony Music a decade after he fought - and lost -an acrimonious High Court battle with the major. The deal is a major coup for Sony and in particular its UK chairman Rob Stringer, who was instrumental in negotiating the worldwide pact. It brings back into the Sony family one of the most successful solo male artists of all time. According to a statement issued today, Michael - who is managed by former Sony executive Andy Stephens - is currently in the process of finishing his forthcoming album Patience, which is set to be released early next year. The artist released two singles for Universal in 2002, but never signed an album deal. Commenting on the signing Stringer says, "We are delighted to be working again with one of the greatest recording artists this country has ever produced, who has made another classic album." Michael originally signed to Epic as part of the duo Wham! in 1982 and subsequently enjoyed phenomenal solo success, particularly with his 1987 album Faith. However, his relations with the label turned sour following the release of Listen Without Prejudice Vol.1, prompting the singer to launch a lengthy and high profile High Court battle in 1993 in which he alleged restraint of trade. After losing the case, he released a greatest hits for Sony in 1998 as part of the settlement which included new tracks such as the hit single Outside. It is understood that in recent years his relations with the major have improved, not least because most of the senior executives he took issue with in the High Court have left the company.

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